Mum who was widowed the same day she was diagnosed with cancer has died

A mother-of-two who received a shock cancer diagnosis on the same day she became a widow has died after battling the disease for two years.

Tessie Sylvester’s husband, John, passed away on June 16, 2017 aged 44, after battling ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) for six years. Just hours after her husband’s passing, Sylvester received a phone call from her doctor with biopsy results revealing she had adenocarcinoma – a type of cancer which forms in the mucus glands of organs like the lungs and colon.

When her doctor called, Sylvester happened to be on the phone with a funeral director following her husband’s death.

“I clicked over and that’s when the doctor said it was cancer and that we needed to get going with treatment,” she told People at the time. “I sat there with [John’s body] for a second, just crying.

“Then my parents came over and I think I just went into shock.”

Tessie Sylvester with her two sons. (GoFundMe)

The mum also admitted she was “scared” about what would happen to her sons.

According to a GoFundMe page set up to support the late mum’s two sons, Gus and Freddy, Sylvester passed away at the beginning of this month.

“On May 1st, 2019, cancer took Tessie’s body away from our world,” the page explains. “Her spirit lives strong in her boys and her family.”

The two young boys have been formally adopted by Sylvester’s sister Jenny Halverson and her husband Chris, which took place two weeks before she passed away, the Star Tribune reports.

“When you think of how much they’ve been handed in their short lives so far, they’ve handled it just like their mom: with awesome strength, boundless courage and astonishing grace,” Halverson said of her sister’s two sons. “It’s remarkable, their resilience.